"My dad had one made...it was the first ever made," MacNeil says.

That helmet is now in the Baseball Hall of Fame in Cooperstown, N.Y.

MacNeil continues to make history with his work in and outside of D.C.

MacNeil is currently on the boards of the Mass. Historical Society in Boston and the American Antiquarian Society in Worchester. He as serves as a trustee with the Augustus St. Gordon's historical site in Cornish, N.H.

In addition to these obligations, MacNeil is in the process of what he says may be his most ambitious project to date.

MacNeil is currently working on book about the U.S. Senate, a national stage featuring "the greatest cast and the greatest struggles" over the country's history, according to MacNeil.

This work, which does not yet have a title, has been a long-term project. MacNeil began the process in 1988 when he signed with publisher Little, Brown.

Like his career, MacNeil says, the book is turning out to have a finger in many political pies.

"It's a very difficult subject, everything I touch goes all kinds of strange ways," MacNeil says.